We knew each other.
We were going to make this work, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Yeah, it might take a bit of time for us to get used to each other, but what couple didn’t need that? There were bound to be arguments over the correct way to load the dishwasher or whether to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom or the middle of the tube. That didn’t mean we couldn’t make it work, though.
I still missed Jack and Donna. Out of all the foster homes I’d lived in, theirs had been my favorite. But life moved on, so I had to move on, too.
Which was precisely why I was here at this point in time. Now was the moment for me to find my forever, one just as happy and lasting as theirs was.
But now that I was on the ground, no longer floating up in the clouds, I noticed that Paul had an enormous dog standing at his side, a realization that made my breath catch in my throat. And the fact that it was barking and growling caused me even greater pause.
Was it a Doberman? A pit bull? I couldn’t be sure. I’d never paid much attention to the distinguishing characteristics of dog breeds. There didn’t seem to be a point in worrying about what type of dog a particular beast was since they all terrified me in equal measure.
I tried to swallow my fear and focus on all the positives. I recognized Paul from the pictures he’d sent, even if he looked quite a bit older and a great deal paunchier than he’d let on. But everyone posted the best photos of themselves on dating websites, I supposed. It wasn’t a crime to put your best foot forward. Maybe those pictures were a few years old or something, and he’d just wanted to make a good impression on me. I’d taken a few dozen selfies before settling on the one I’d use, so I couldn’t exactly complain that he’d been deceitful in selecting a photo that put him in the best light possible.
I had to admit that the black leather getup he was wearing took me by surprise, though. Not to mention the leash and studded collar he held in his hands. Shouldn’t the collar be on the dog? And definitely the leash. Someone needed to keep that beast under control, especially out in public.
And then there was the fact that he hadn’t even mentioned he owned a dog. Most people probably wouldn’t think that was such a big omission, but I wasn’t most people.
I’d never been what was considered normal, and I doubted I ever would be. Especially not when it came to dogs.
I’d never done well around them, not since I was seven years old and living with yet another set of foster parents, who’d owned a mean pair of poorly trained Rottweilers that were always snarling and barking at me. And then one day, one of them had done more than just posture—he’d bitten me, nearly taking a chunk of my leg along with him. At the hospital, the social worker had told my foster parents that either the dog had to go or I did.
That had been the end of my stay with those foster parents. I couldn’t say I was disappointed, outside of liking the way that particular foster mom had cooked. In some of the homes I’d stayed in over the years, the food was just awful.
But…dogs. Yeah. Needless to say, it wasn’t my fault I was terrified of them.
I’d been so excited about finally finding my happy ever after that I hadn’t thought to ask if Paul had any pets. That was mistake number one. With any luck, it would be the last mistake I’d made when it came to my plan.
Steeling my spine against the fear that had me itching to turn around and climb right back onto the plane, I put my best effort into my smile and crossed over to the man I was going to marry.
The dog let out a warning growl as I approached, which had me freezing in my tracks.
“Come on,” Paul said, crossing his arms in front of him in what could only be termed impatience. “He won’t hurt anyone unless I tell him to.”
For some reason, that didn’t bring me much consolation. I swallowed hard and bit down on the inside of my cheek, hoping the pain would be just what I needed to work up a bit of courage and do what Paul asked of me. “You never mentioned you had a dog,” I said, hating how stupid and feeble it made me sound.
“Didn’t I?” Paul replied. “Well, I do. Are you coming over here, or what?”
Or what, I thought to myself. Still, despite the anxiety causing me to visibly shake, I forced one foot in front of the other until I was standing right in front of Paul. The dog barked again, and I jumped what must have been a foot in the air.
Paul eyed me up and down, his inspection feeling more like a leer than an appreciative gaze. “Come on, then. We’ve got to get to the beach if we’re going to be on time for the ceremony.” He held out the collar, undoing the latches on it.
“I don’t…” I shook my head, sure I was misinterpreting the situation. “That’s not for me, is it?”
“Of course it is. You’re going to be my wife. The Bible tells us that a wife’s duty is to submit to her husband. Well, you’re going to submit to me. You’re going to wear a collar. You’re going to walk on a leash. You’re going to wear what I tell you to wear and do what I tell you to do. And when you misbehave… Well, we’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
The dog growled again, but in my mind, it might as well have been Paul doing the growling. The way he’d said we’d deal with my misbehavior left me no doubt about what he intended.
I’d paid attention to the news. I knew about the sex trafficking that went on in some parts of the world. And even if he didn’t want to sell me, even if he just wanted to do things to me himself…
Nope, I couldn’t allow myself to think about things like that. And I definitely wouldn’t allow him to treat me that way.
I couldn’t believe this. Not any of it.
I shook my head, as if that could change the situation, but nothing changed. Paul was still standing there with the dog and the collar and the leash, and he was looking at me with extreme impatience, and this was quickly turning into my worst nightmare. No, even worse than my worst nightmare, which was saying something, since I’d lived in more than a dozen different foster homes over the years.
I’d thought I had it all figured out. This was supposed to be my fairy tale. My page-turning romance. My happy ever after. Maybe it would take us a little time to sort things out, but Paul was supposed to be handsome and kind and honest and gallant. That was how it always worked out, in the end. Wasn’t it?
The way things stood, there was nothing kind or honest about him. If there were, he would have been upfront about his expectations. Heck, he wouldn’t even have this kind of expectation of me. There was no point mentioning the handsome part. He certainly wasn’t. And gallant? If I weren’t already so close to tears, I might have burst out laughing.
But there wasn’t anything funny about this situation. Nothing at all.
“I think I’ve made a mistake,” I said when my voice came back to me.
Not just any mistake, either. A huge one. Massive, even. The biggest mistake I could ever dream of making. Actually, in my wildest dreams, I never would have come up with something this bad. I didn’t even have enough money left to get on a plane and go back home. As if I had a home to go back to. Ha. What a joke. I might be able to afford a decent meal and a night in a motel, if I was lucky.
If only it were a joke. That might make me laugh, but all I wanted to do right now was cry.
I wished I still had a phone number for Jack and Donna, but they’d moved at some point when I was with a different foster family, and I’d completely lost them. They would have helped me out, I was sure of it. I could have probably found someone in the system who could have pointed me in the right direction to find them, but I had never done anything like that. I had been certain I’d be fine on my own.
But I didn’t have anyone else I could turn to.
And I didn’t have anywhere I could go.
“A mistake?” Paul sneered, sounding eerily like his dog. I jumped when the dog barked again. Paul advanced on me, and the dog came with him, making me want to turn and run even though that was apparently the last thing you were supposed to do around an aggressi
ve dog, right? Running only made them think you were prey, something to be chased. But were aggressive men like aggressive dogs? And if I didn’t run, what would happen to me? Would he put that collar around my neck and drag me off to become his sex slave?
I was the biggest fool on the face of the planet.
But what other choice did I have? None, the way I saw it. I had no options left open to me but to go along with whatever he wanted. The problem was, I didn’t think I had the nerve to do it.
“Well?” Paul demanded, his beast of a dog growling at his side. “Are you coming over here so I can put this on you, or am I going to have to punish you?”
“I can’t,” I spluttered, tears threatening to spill free.
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I mean I can’t. I can’t do this. Not any of it.”
His eyes flashed with heat, giving me an inkling of the rage he was keeping tightly in check. “So the deal’s off?”
I could only manage a nod, because my voice had failed me. But I doubted he had any intention of keeping that rage in check at all once he had me in the collar, so there wasn’t any question about it. I couldn’t marry him.
Paul glared, and for a moment, I thought he was going to grab me and force me into it anyway. Or set his dog on me. Or whip out a knife or a gun and kill me on the spot. Maybe I should stop reading so much fiction, because my imagination was quickly running away with me. I’d gone from an arranged-marriage romance to an action-packed thriller in less than two minutes.
“Guess you’d better find yourself a flight home,” Paul ground out. Then he whistled for the dog to follow him, turned on his heel, and stalked away.
“With what money?” I shouted after him. Don’t ask me where I got the courage to ask that much, because the last thing I wanted was for that dog to come back over here. Still, I’d started, so I might as well get the rest out. “I spent everything I had to get here. I don’t have enough to go back.”
“Sounds like your problem. If you don’t want to give yourself to me, I’m sure there are plenty of other men with similar tastes around here who’ll pay you for your time. Maybe you can fuck enough men to book a flight home after a couple of weeks. If you’re any good.”
He thought I should become a prostitute. Good lord.
But…there might not be any other options for me. I didn’t have a legal right to stay in Mexico without marrying him. I didn’t have any money left after booking my flight here, so there was no way for me to get a return flight. How could I possibly go home? Granted, I didn’t even know where home was anymore.
Everyone was always telling me to get my head out of the clouds, to take a look in front of me and see the world for what it really was and not for what I wanted it to be.
Maybe now was time for me to start to listen.
I was such a bumbling idiot. Too bad I hadn’t smartened up a bit sooner.
My tears fell freely down my cheeks, threatening to stain my dress with running mascara, but I was powerless to stop them. I really, really wished I could call home right about now. But when you spend your entire childhood moving from one foster home to another, you don’t really have any roots. There was no one to call, nowhere I could go.
I was well and truly on my own in a foreign country, and I didn’t have a way out of it.
“ANOTHER,” I SAID to the bartender, slurring the word slightly.
He gave me a quizzical look, as if he hadn’t understood me—or at least, in my heavily drunken state, it seemed as if that was what he was doing—but when I lifted the shot glass in the air and waved it around to show him it was obviously empty, he got the message, pouring another shot and setting it on the bar in front of me.
I couldn’t exactly tell him what I needed in words that he’d understand. I was a fucking Canadian, after all. While I knew enough French to get by in Quebec, I didn’t know a lick of Spanish and I hadn’t bothered to learn any before coming down here. They always said money was the universal language, right? Something like that. And I had plenty of money to toss around, thanks to my pro hockey career with the Portland Storm. I earned more in a year than my parents and brother could ever dream of earning in an entire lifetime.
The plan for this week in paradise was to use my money to get what I wanted without making an ass of myself and getting beat up. And what I wanted was to get drunk. I definitely wanted to spend it on that a hell of a lot more than on Amanda and her fucking clothes and her fucking hair appointments and spa appointments, and especially more than I wanted to spend it on her fucking flights for my brother to come down and fuck her in my own goddamned fucking bed. Fucking bitch.
Fuck her.
Actually, no. I wouldn’t be fucking her anymore, thank you very much. I’d leave that one to Colby if he was dumb enough to take her back. Considering how I’d found them out, something told me he might just be that stupid.
Yeah, so maybe I was drunk off my ass, but I didn’t give a flying fuck.
Damn, that was a lot of fucks, even for me and taking my highly inebriated state into consideration.
I could use a good fuck, come to think of it. Some pretty Mexican senorita. Someone whose name I wouldn’t remember in the morning. Then I could shove it in Amanda’s face, because I doubted she would be getting laid tonight.
I looked down at my shot glass, which was once again empty. That wasn’t going to work for me. I intended to drink enough tequila tonight that my ankle wouldn’t hurt anymore. Hell, I wanted to drink enough that I wouldn’t even remember my name when it was all said and done. I definitely didn’t want to remember Amanda’s and Colby’s names. That sounded like the best plan.
So I caught the bartender’s eye and held up my empty shot glass again. He chuckled, but he came over and poured more tequila for me.
“Just leave the bottle,” I said, placing a few bills on the sticky, filthy countertop—enough to pay for the entire bottle and then some.
But he shook his head and said, “No comprende,” and he walked off with the bottle, but not before I caught sight of the huge grin on his face.
Bullshit. The asshole had understood me perfectly well. He just didn’t want to leave the bottle with me.
I wasn’t a belligerent, violent drunk—more the sullen, sulky sort.
He had no way of knowing that, but still. He ought to give me the benefit of the doubt until I proved otherwise.
Frustrated with everyone and everything, I lifted the shot glass to my lips, but a glimpse of something soft and white filtered into my vision off to the side, drawing my attention to the edge of the open-air, beachside cantina. Except, it wasn’t an it at all—it was a pretty blonde in what could only be described as a wedding dress. In the moment before she glanced back over her shoulder, as if checking to be certain that no one was following her, I noticed the tears streaking down her cheeks, threatening to stain her dress with her mascara.
And the sight of her and those tears and that damned wedding dress just pissed me the hell off.
Don’t ask me why, exactly. I wasn’t mad at her—just at whatever had caused her to cry like this on her wedding day. Maybe I was simply commiserating with her or something. Today was supposed to be my wedding day, after all. Right now, I should be down on the beach, saying my vows, but instead I was in here trying to drink myself into a stupor.
Before I could think about what I was doing, I’d climbed off my stool at the bar and was stumbling my way over to her, my frustratingly empty shot glass in my hand. “Don’t cry, baby doll,” I said when I stood before her, reaching over to tip up her chin. Actually, I was surprised I didn’t slur the words, because I was a lot more wasted than I’d initially thought I was, considering how difficult it was to avoid stumbling.
She looked at me with huge, brown, tear-filled eyes, trembling slightly at my touch.
I couldn’t say I blamed her for being scared of me, once I thought about it. I mean, I’d always been a big guy compared to the average Joe, and I was drun
k off my ass. Plus, I was a stranger. She definitely should be wary. There was no way for her to know I wanted to help her, not hurt her.
The way she shook felt like an admonishment, though. I took my hand away from her chin once I remembered to use my brain.
“Who are you?” she forced out between sobs and hiccups.
“Riley Jezek,” I said. “Who are you?”
“Mackenzie Cain.” Then she narrowed those tear-filled eyes at me. “Wait, why am I telling you anything?”
“Because you want to trust me.”
“I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you.”
“Come on,” I said, winking in an attempt to put her at ease. “Come have a seat and let me buy you a shot. We can get to know each other.”
“I don’t drink. And I especially don’t accept drinks from strange men.”
Of course she didn’t drink. That would make everything too simple.
There was a niggling thought poking at the back of my mind—something about her being a lot smarter than I was, given my current state of drunkenness and her unwillingness to accept a drink from someone she didn’t know, but that thought annoyed me. I banished it as quickly as it had arrived. Because, while I might be drunk and a stranger, I wasn’t a danger to her—only to myself, in my current state.
I wanted to help her. But how was she supposed to know that, especially when considering the degree of my inebriation?
“Well, let me buy you a soda,” I said, feeling slightly desperate to get her to come with me, for reasons I would never understand even if I made an attempt to—and at present, I wasn’t making any such attempt. “Or if not soda, then water. Something.”
Why did it matter if she came and talked to me? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it mattered. A lot. Maybe more than it should, since I didn’t know her or anything about her.
She still didn’t budge.
“Look, I just want to help you out. I’m not some creep—”
“How am I supposed to know that?” she cut in, sounding slightly panicked, which was probably smart of her, come to think of it. “Why should I trust you? I trusted Paul, and look where that got me!” The more she talked, the more hysterical she sounded.
Power Play (Portland Storm Book 16) Page 2